It's The Quenchiest
by Laboon's Wrath
Summary: In Fire-Nation occupied Ba Sing Se, a young Earthbender and his friends discover something sinister about a new drink...
1. Chapter 1

It's The Quenchiest

This is an _Avatar: The Last Airbender _fic. It takes place in Ba Sing Se during the Fire Nation occupation, so it's kind of a "Book 2.5," or it would be if it were canon.

*****

Chapter 1: Run

"Run, Deiro!"

The young black-haired boy glanced behind him. His friend Bushi ran slower than he, so the Fire Nation soldiers were gaining on him quicker. His sword clapped his back as he ran.

"You just had to attack them, didn't you?" called Bushi.

"They were about to beat a defenseless girl for no reason whatsoever!" protested Deiro. "You would've done the same!"

Bushi shook his head. "Whatever," he sighed. "Let's just get out of here."

Deiro nodded. Using Earthbending, he rocketed himself up and onto the roof of a building, tearing two of its shingles off and using them as skates, which increased his speed.

"Hey, genius!" yelled Bushi. "Have you forgotten that I can't do those kinds of tricks?"

Deiro grinned sheepishly. "Right," he said, and pulled some more shingles from a roof, which Bushi used as stepping stones to get to Deiro. Deiro created another pair of shingle skates for Bushi. The Fire Nation soldiers continued to follow them, blasting fire at them at any opportunity.

Finally, Deiro and Bushi reached Deiro's house in the Middle Ring of Ba Sing Se. They jumped off the shingle skates, which Deiro flung at the soldiers using Earthbending. The shingles hit the soldiers, knocking them unconscious.

Deiro and Bushi snuck into the house, silently closing the door behind them. "We're in luck," said Deiro. "It doesn't look like anyone's home."

"Oh, really?" came a voice. They turned to see Takara, Deiro's girlfriend, leaning on one of the house's walls.

"H-hey, Taki," said Deiro nervously. "Um, we were just—"

"A word to the wise, Deiro," Takara said, "next time you knock out some Fire Nation soldiers, make sure you move them afterwards." She pointed to a window. Deiro looked outside at the Fire Nation soldiers' motionless bodies on the ground. He chuckled in the way one chuckles when one is embarrassed. He quickly used Earthbending to move their bodies into an alleyway.

Later, Deiro's friend Kuri came to Deiro's house for a visit. She was slurping a green drink from a bottle of some sort. "Hi, Deiro!" she said cheerfully.

"Hi, Kuri," he responded. Noticing her drink, he asked her, "What's that you're guzzling?"

"This?" she said, "It's Cactus Juice, a new drink that they asked me to test. It's really good. Their slogans are also cute. 'It'll quench ya!' 'It's the Quenchiest!'"

"The 'Quenchiest?' That isn't even a word!" said Takara.

"Who made it, anyway?" asked Bushi.

"'Trruap Beverages' is what the bottle says," Kuri explained. "It's a Fire Nation company."

"Fire Nation?!" exclaimed Bushi. He swatted the bottle out of Kuri's hands, spilling the Cactus Juice on the floor.

"Hey!" cried Kuri. "What was that for?"

"S-sorry," said Bushi. "It's just- you know what the Fire Nation did to my mother: they took her from my home two weeks ago, and I haven't seen her since. You understand why I wouldn't want you supporting the Fire Nation by testing products whose sales would help fund their war efforts."

Kuri sighed. "I guess, she said. "I forgive you. I'll just have to go back down to the factory tonight to get a new bottle."

Bushi's eyes flashed at this. "Well," he said, "it's getting a bit late. I'd better head home or my dad will start to worry about me." Deiro nodded.

"'Bye, Bushi," he said as Bushi got up and left.

"I'd better leave, too," said Kuri. "I just remembered that my mom asked me to pick up some tomato-carrots from the Agrarian zone."

"What about you, Taki?" asked Deiro after Kuri had left. "Can you stay for dinner?"

Takara nodded. "I don't have any plans for tonight. I'll just send a messenger pigeon to my parents telling them I'll be here for dinner." She got up to do just that. Deiro picked up the bottle that had held Kuri's Cactus Juice and stared at it for a long while.

****

Later that night, Deiro was watching Takara and his sister Usagi practice their martial arts in the room Deiro shared with Usagi. Usagi favored hopping and jumping strikes, which was why she was nicknamed Hopper. Takara preferred close-combat maneuvers. A knock came upon the door. It was Barent, Deiro's mother.

"Takara, you'll need to start heading home in twenty minutes," said Barent. "You don't want to break curfew." Takara nodded.

"Man, curfew sucks," said Usagi. "I wish the Avatar would come and save us from the Fire Nation."

"Sorry, Hopper, but that's not gonna happen," said Deiro sadly. "I heard the Avatar was killed."

"Deiro!" snapped Takara.

"What?" said Deiro. "She's fourteen, just two years younger than us. She has a right to know these things."

Just then, Bushi climbed into the room through the window.

"Bushi?" said Usagi. "What are you doing here?"

"I followed Kuri to the Cactus Juice plant," explained Bushi. "I broke into the office of the drink's developer, and I found this." He held up a small booklet. "There were three copies, so I took one. It's a journal by Cactus Juice's creator, Shiiro Kashida. Listen to this." Bushi cleared his throat.

"'Having experienced the hallucinogenic properties of the cactus juice firsthand, I experimented with it. Imagine my surprise when I found that a mixture of the juice and several other chemicals created a tasty, habit-forming substance that could rot away one's desire to make their own choices, effectively making it a mind-control device.'" Bushi looked up.

"Don't you see? Cactus Juice is a front for a Fire Nation mind-control device. We have to shut that plant down, before the drink is released among the general populace. I don't know when that'll be, so tonight may be our only chance. We need to get going now!"

"But," said Usagi, "curfew-"

"I think that destroying a factory that makes mid-control juice supersedes obeying curfew on the priority list," said Bushi. "Do you _want _to become a fire zombie?"

"No, please," squeaked Usagi.

"Bushi's right," said Deiro. "We have to stop Cactus Juice, and we've got to do it tonight."

* * *

Next Time: Assault on the Cactus Juice plant! Plus, enter a young Firebender named Natsu!


	2. Chapter 2: The Plant

The four friends snuck through the streets of Ba Sing Se. This was no easy task, as Fire Nation soldiers were everywhere, looking for curfew-breakers to punish. The plant was in the Agrarian Zone, so they had a considerable way to go: it took them an hour and a half to reach it. It was nearly midnight, as they had had to leave after Deiro's parents had fallen asleep. Takara had managed to convince Deiro's parents and her own to let her stay overnight, and Bushi had just hidden.

"There's the plant," said Bushi. Light from the factory filtered down and illuminated his brownish-gold hair. Bushi had a square jaw and violet eyes. These, combined with his hair (a color so rare it did not have an official name), made him quite an unusual sight in the Middle Ring. Bushi himself lived with his father in a small apartment in the Lower Ring of the city.

"How are we going to shut it down?" asked Usagi. Bushi turned to her.

"I studied a map when I was here earlier," he explained. "There's a large generator that powers the facility. If we can do enough damage to it, it'll short-circuit and explode."

"And how, pray tell, are we going to cause that much damage?" asked Takara, brushing her brown hair from her eyes.

Bushi smiled. "Easy," he said. "Deiro just has to do some Earthbending, pummel it with some rocks, and _boom_! No more Cactus Juice."

"One problem, Bushi," said Deiro. "That's a _metal _factory. I can't bend metal."

"I've figured that out, too," replied Bushi. "Near the generator room is the juicing room, where they extract the pure liquid from cactuses. They use rocks to squeeze the juice out. You can just get some of those and smash up the generator with them."

"And what about security, Bushi?" said Takara. "This is a major Fire Nation operation. Security's going to be tight."

"That's why I stole these from a store room," said Bushi, taking four security uniforms from his bag. "Let's get going."

***

The Cactus Juice plant was dark and damp. Echoes of things not seen rang through the hallways. The entire place was metal; black metal that was as beautiful as it was terrifying. Deiro and his friends made their way to the back of the factory, towards the juicing room.

"Hey, you four!" came a voice. They turned to see a guard come walking toward them.

"Who are you?" the guard asked. "I don't remember you people."

"We're… interns," said Takara. "Yeah, real new, just got here today. We're, uh, familiarizing ourselves with the factory."

"Yeah," said Deiro. He sniffed one of the walls. "Mmmmm! Still got that new factory smell!" Takara slapped her face.

The guard raised an eyebrow, then shrugged. "Very well," he said. "As you were." And with that, he strode off.

The group soon found the juicing room. Rocks pounded pieces of cactus, squeezing the juice from it. Using his Earthbending, Deiro took several of these rocks and levitated them behind the group.

"The generator room isn't very far from here," said Bushi. "If we hurry, we can destroy the plant and be back home by dawn."

"Wait," said Usagi. "I just thought of something. How are we going to escape once Deiro wrecks the generator? I don't want to die in a firey explosion. At least, not at fourteen."

"That's easy," explained Bushi. "The generator will take about two minutes to blow completely. In that time, Deiro can break the wall open with the rocks, and we can ride a wave of earth to safety."

Usagi sighed. "Fine, I guess," she said.

The group finally found the generator room. Deiro was preparing to strike the generator with one of the rocks when someone cried out: "Halt, or I'll burn you where you stand!"

Standing in the doorway was a black-haired young man with grey eyes and tanned skin. He wore a schoolboy's uniform.

"I am Natsu, Kashida, son of Shiiro Kashida, creator of Cactus Juice!" the boy said. "You are Earth Kingdom revolutionaries here to vandalize this factory senselessly! Explain yourselves immediately or suffer the consequences!"

Deiro and Bushi glanced at each other. "Natsu," said Bushi, pulling the journal of Shiiro Kashida from his bag, "I'm afraid that there's more to Cactus Juice than meets the eye…"

* * *

Next Time: Natsu learns the truth about Cactus Juice and joins the group, but they are discovered and forced to flee. The gang is on the run, and things get even worse as more Cactus Juice factories start showing up, and the date of the drink;s public release grows nearer…


End file.
